


Hospitals & Hand grenades

by Lyssandra_Med



Series: Lovingly Dysfunctional [8]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Muggle, Angst, Bellamione Cult Ilvermorny Cup, Discord: Bellamione Cult, Established Relationship, F/F, Hospitals
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-24 09:00:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20703350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyssandra_Med/pseuds/Lyssandra_Med
Summary: Delphini Black, Delphi to her friends and Phi to her mothers, hated hospitals. She had hated them ever since the very moment that she’d been born, had hated them ever since, and had come to the rather sour conclusion that she would hate them until the day she died.





	Hospitals & Hand grenades

**Author's Note:**

> Minimal editing.

Delphini Black, Delphi to her friends and Phi to her mothers,  _ hated _ hospitals. She had hated them ever since the very moment that she’d been born, had hated them ever since, and had come to the rather sour conclusion that she would hate them until the day she died. Her Mum loved to tell new friends, and sometimes random acquaintances, just how terribly her little Phi hated hospitals. She’d begin her yarn with revealing how when she’d emerged into the world she had been an exceedingly silent child; quiet and serene like not a thing could bother her at all. She had blinked once, at her mother’s tear streaked face, twice, at the tall and gangly doctor standing at her side with a wisp of white hair looking mangled upon his head, and then let up a caterwaul unlike anything that she had experienced before or since.

Now, in her late twenties and far removed from the trauma of childbirth, she  _ still _ felt an unmistakable pang of terror and anger at the mere thought of stepping into the overly clean hallways of a hospital. They all smelled of sterility despite housing within them multiple cases of rot, they harbored madness and despair in equal measure behind the shiny veneer of cleanliness and healing. Antiseptics and harsh lighting had given her the chills for as long as she could remember, unlocking some wiggling thing into the back of her mind that whispered dark tones that said  _ ‘You’ll die here too, one day.’ _

She utterly, truly, hoped that wouldn’t be the case; that instead she would find herself drifting off to an eternal slumber at the ripe old age of never, or throwing herself through the veil in a blur of flames and speed that left it all over in an instant that was bright enough to etch itself into the memories of those around her. Her Mother, Hermione and not Bellatrix, had always been acerbic and exasperated when she’d voiced those thoughts as a young teen, always trying to get her mood to shift or at the very least to denounce the latter half of her wishes. She recognized then, as she did now, how alienating it must have been for a parent to hear their child talk of death in such a fashion, and suitably learned to keep those thoughts politely to herself as she’d grown older. 

Her fear, or rather the choice of avoidance, towards hospitals and care centers the world over hadn’t been helped one whit when she was growing up. From her Grandfather Cygnus’s slow decline due to rampant cancer to her Uncle (honorary in the highest sense) Siri’s frequent episodes of suicide attempts and mental breakdowns, or her cousin Nymph’s mammoth sixty-three hour labor that had nearly sent her into an early grave; any and all experience with hospitals had been rooted somewhere between negative and pants shittingly terrifying.

She wished beyond all hope of measure or reason that she didn’t have to be here today. Hoped that when she’d received the call it was for a clean bill of health and orders to pick up her Mum, Bellatrix and not Hermione, to take her home. Finally.

But it wasn’t.

\---

The ordeal itself had started off simply enough with a random chest twinge that the Black family matriarch had likened to a bit of overexertion she’d experienced back when she had been younger and far more spritely. Instead of seeking out a doctor, as she should have done now that she was at the ripe age of Fifty Six, she had instead brushed it off and all concern shown by her family members along with it. The next bit had popped off with the dogs they had been boarding for Sirius all going a bit… mad. None of them, from the tiny little schnauzer to the massive hulking malamute, were giving her any space. Each would bray and howl in an uneven tone throughout the day and into the night as they crowded around her with unusual attentiveness and sniffed ponderously at the air.

Hermione had been the first to bring it up that the attention and their actions was a weirdness foreign to them both as Bellatrix was a cat person through and through. Oh, she loved them well enough, and would never go out of her way to mistreat or harm them; but given her preferences she left them alone, they left her alone, and everyone was happy. Hermione or Delphi were their regular target for pets and bouts of play, not her. But that afternoon and well into the darkness of the night they had stayed with her and brayed all the while, sticking their noses against her chest before dropping to the floor and calling up as lowly as they could. 

And then the clock struck twelve thirteen.

Bellatrix had stood up into a lilting position that left one half of her body in front of the other, loudly calling for Hermione and proclaiming that yes, indeed, something was truly wrong. The pain that had settled into her chest was now pounding in its intensity while most of her left side was slowly growing numb. Last, but worryingly not least, was the sudden shortness of breath that she experienced and the pain that accompanied trying to inhale enough to fill her lungs.

Delphi couldn’t remember where she had been that night, couldn’t recall whether she’d been off with friends by that point or had still been stuck in the bookstore getting it ready for an early opening, but either way she hadn’t received any of her Mother’s frantic phone calls. She hadn’t gotten a  _ single _ one while Hermione raced from their little home with a police car hot on her ass and Bellatrix in the seat beside her as she wavered in and out of consciousness. That knowledge, knowing that her one line of contact had gone out for whoever knew what reason, scared her almost as much as hospitals now did.

The trip that Hermione had made to the lonely little hospital that their town called its own was a trip that should have taken her twenty minutes if she’d driven the speed limit and followed the direction of stop signs. Her Mother ended up managing it in eleven minutes flat with a back left tire burst down to the rims and the police car racing on ahead once he’d realized who it was and where she’d been headed.

That time skip, only eight or nine minutes in total, made all the difference.

Hermione had sprinted inside the building with Bellatrix’s left arm wrapped over her shoulder while the police officer, Alastor if she remembered correctly, began waving down nurses.

Bellatrix died before even getting a word out, her heart giving in under the strain and lungs seizing up when darkness took hold.

Their town was small enough that one of Delphi’s friends had been the nurse waiting in the lobby at the time of their arrival, sitting quietly behind a large mahogany desk as she played with her phone and waited for something, anything, to pull her from the drudgery of work. Bellatrix’s sudden collapse turned out to be just the thing to hold her attention amid the boredom that regularly filled her waking hours.

Within minutes Bellatrix had been revived and sent off through a pair of swinging doors while Hermione had been corralled by staff into somewhat of a controlled state, well enough at least for her to describe the symptoms and give the go ahead for their intervention. Delphi had still remained unaware as the hours ticked on until she finally made her way to their home at around four in the morning. When she pulled up she first noticed the missing car, then a glass of milk spilled out and left to spoil atop the counter, and lastly the dogs all having a miniature freakout at having been left alone in such a manner.

One phone call let her hear her Mother’s voice, strong and steady despite the intense emotional disruption, and was enough to nearly break her heart.

\---

All that had happened five months ago and ever since she’d disappeared behind those doors her Mum had been locked down into a coma with her body temperature lowered and tubes descending into her throat and stomach to ensure she didn’t die right then. There was no way, or at least nothing with true surety, to tell if she would ever wake up again. The coma had been an initial method of healing from the heart attack, her doctors had induced it in order to work their particular brand of medical necromancy, but after the drugs had been ceased her brain had still refused to wake up. Hours slowly turned into days, then days turned over into weeks, and before too long her Mother had made this small room into her permanent encampment.

Delphi was anything but stupid and knew that her parents insurance would only run so far, knew that both of them being out of work for so long would have an adverse affect on both of them if her Mum survived this. So she’d turned towards staying at the house again; helping with bills and maintenance whenever she could while working generously with her relatives. Then soon enough five months of this intermediary hell had passed, five months that saw her Mum’s once curly black hair, all volume and whirls that were hauntingly beautiful in their own way, wilt into a frizzled gray that left strands snapping whenever she was moved or when her Mother ran a hand through the thick mane.

Her face had turned shallow and tight as skin pulled tightly across sharp cheekbones and pointed chin, all while a sickly tallow color began perverting the natural porcelain of her once supple skin in a way that left Delphi’s stomach empty and wringing itself into knots. Her body had once been lean and muscular both from her job and frequent time spent outdoors, but now that she was immobile and fed an insufficient amount of liquid calories it was growing thin and bony in response. At times she would seem responsive, her limbs moving and body stretching outwards as if she was waking up, and each time the doctors would console them with saddened words relaying that it was an automatic response, nothing conscious and nothing true.

And today Delphi had finally gotten The Call.

They were to pull her Mum off life support, off the machines responsible for keeping her lungs pumping, it was all to be turned off after her family had a chance to say goodbye. Delphi had determined right away that she would remain until the very end, that she would stand by her Mother’s side and inform the rest when it was all over. Her Mum, friend,  _ Bellatrix, _ had been with her there at the beginning. It was the least she could do to remain there until the end.

When she arrived the small space had been packed full of family and friends while the doctors and nurses waited outside or attended to other matters, waiting on the grieving family to leave so that they could get to work.

Andromeda pulled her aside before she had a chance to walk through the door, her long curls of brown rolling down her shoulders in a way that made Delphi’s heart break just a little more as memories of those curls in  _ black _ filled her eyes.The hug she received from her aunt was as full of vigor as she could make it; tight and kind as she whispered words of comfort in her ear. From there it was Nymph who found her next, her older cousin looking put together in a black suit that matched her dyed hair, a strong hug and more whispers filling the void. Sirius and his husband Remus were next, both offering her words of wisdom and sage advice amid comical anecdotes that worked to smother her nerves before she moved onto her Aunt Narcissa and younger cousin Draco.

Her heart went out to him as he stood there with barely managed hair and haunted eyes; his world almost definitely flashing back to the recent episode of his Father’s pneumonia that left Narcissa a widow. Her Aunt looked the worst out of everyone there with exception to Hermione, the golden tresses she’d once sported cut off at her chin to leave a gray bob that sought to flaunt her age and maturity as a weapon; in Delphi’s opinion it just served to show how tired she was. How broken. Her eyes dripped mascara and a handkerchief was tucked tightly against her lips as she passed a hand down her sister’s thin arm, no words to speak across the ocean standing between them. 

There were others; Rodolphus’s widow, Hermione’s friends Harry and Ginny, even her Mum’s old boss had taken time off work to make an appearance. Each said their piece in turns until eventually the room was only their little family, Bellatrix peacefully laying upon the bed and Delphi stood by her Mother’s shoulder. Hermione had clenched down on Delphi’s hand as soon as the others had left, as if she’d been holding onto her emotions for the sake of her Sister’s-in-Law or friends and family, ready now to finally let herself  _ feel. _

“You go ahead,” Hermione hiccoughed through her words, “Just… Just come out and let me know when you’re ready, okay sweetie?”

Delphi leaned in for a hug, her arms practically engulfing her Mother as she realized just how much the past few months had taken from the woman. Hermione had never once been a muscular person, perfectly petite and absolutely comfortable in remaining lithe rather than athletic, but there was now a fragility to her that had Delphi worried beyond measure that she would crack or break if she squeezed too tightly.

Delphi released her hold with a final sigh and stepped back, “Alright. I won’t be long.”

As her Mother shuffled off through the door and closed it shut behind herself with a small clicking of metal on metal, Delphi let out a sound half between a cry of rage and a plea for mercy. Her body nearly dropped as her emotions came undone, her arms crossing above the bars anchoring the sides of the bed and her forehead rested upon those. Her body rocked forwards and backwards as she fought for words and feelings, some way to express how unfair this all was, how horrid the events had become.

“Mum… Mum I,” she froze, one hand ghosting across the pale and thin skin of Bellatrix’s hand, her fingers pressing against the rough tape that held needles into veins, “I…”

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like Bellamione? https://discord.gg/pcfMU4F come on in and join the server!

**Author's Note:**

> Second part to come later.


End file.
